Local News

Lawyer's letter seeks odor feedback

Potential for litigation against sugar factory cited in document mailed to area residents

By Jenni Grubbs

Times Staff Writer

Posted:
08/17/2017 06:54:49 PM MDT

The Western Sugar Cooperative plant that sits in Morgan County next to Fort Morgan could face a class-action lawsuit regarding the odors coming from the plant. (Jon A. Yamamoto / Fort Morgan Times)

Terry McAlister, who previously served as Fort Morgan mayor for six years, shares his concerns May 23 about past broken promises from Western Sugar Cooperative at a public meeting the cooperative held to hear from local residents. Holding such meetings is a condition the Morgan County commissioners put on the cooperative for getting a special use permit for the factory. (Jenni Grubbs / Fort Morgan Times)

The Fort Morgan area has had a particularly pungent odor lately, but is it one worth suing over?

A Denver law firm wants to know what area residents' answer to that question would be.

As such, Fort Morgan area residents may have received a letter in the mail addressed to "current resident."

For those who opened the envelope and did not immediately dismiss it as junk mail, inside they found a letter from a Denver law firm marked "Advertising Material" and with the line "Re: Odors emitted from the Western Sugar Cooperative facility" under the letterhead.

The letter then stated that Fuicelli & Lee, P.C. is "investigating the possibility of filing litigation against the Western Sugar Cooperative facility for the emission of noxious odors."

Keith Fuicelli of that law firm did not return a call requesting comment about the letter by deadline Thursday night.

Talk of the town

The letter certainly was stirring up conversation around town, with discussion about it easy to overhear while in city facilities and local businesses.

Some people thought it sounded like a late-night commercial with a lawyer asking if someone had been hurt in a car accident. Some expressed anger at the sugar factory over the smell and what it had done to their lives. Others were saying it might be a way to force the issue and make the smell go away. Still more were talking about how it could be just a big waste of money by the sugar cooperative that instead should go toward actually fixing the odor problem.

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The Fort Morgan Times spoke with a variety of people about the letter Thursday and got a mixture of all of the above responses and more, some going on the record but many more who were unwilling to publicly put their names on their thoughts.

"I saw it. It looks like somebody is trying to make a buck," Morgan County Commissioner Jim Zwetzig said. "It kind of looks like those attorneys you see on TV."

Fort Morgan City Clerk/Public Information Officer John Brennan said he had not received the letter personally and was only aware of it because of being asked about it by the Times in his capacity as the city's PIO.

"It's obviously from a law firm that specializes in this sort of thing," Brennan said. "It is marked 'advertising material.' That's kind of interesting."

Fort Morgan resident Dan Lehman said he had received the letter and read it, and he was definitely in the camp of being upset with the sugar cooperative about the smell.

"Hey the place pretty much ruined our summer," he said. "There was no BBQ or even sitting outside once the day cooled off. No sleeping with the windows open as the smell would wake me from a deep sleep. It never smelled this bad ever before. The place still stinks just not as often."

Western Sugar Cooperative is on the radar of Denver law firm Fuicelli & Lee P.C., as a lawyer from the firm sent Fort Morgan and area residents a letter seeking information about the "emissions of noxious odors" from the local plant. (Jon A. Yamamoto / Fort Morgan Times)

But Lehman did not indicate whether he planned to respond to the lawyer's letter.

Taking sides

Terry McAlister and Ernie Rodarte, two Fort Morgan residents who also were very much aware of the letter and either had already responded to it or planned to do so, shared their thoughts about it with the Times on Thursday.

McAlister, former Fort Morgan mayor and longtime city resident and businessman, said he had received the letter and already responded to it, including the comments he had made at public meetings held by county officials and the sugar cooperative.

"Yeah, I answered the questions," McAlister said. "I didn't have anything to hide. I made the same statements at public meetings."

Still, he was not sure if it would amount to anything.

"I don't know what their plan is," the former mayor said of the law firm and the information they were gathering through the letter.

But he likely had some harsh words about the sugar cooperative in what he sent back to the lawyers.

"When you have your own relatives that don't want to come see you anymore because of the stinking, it's a problem," McAlister said. "It's a situation that has made my life here in this town not as desirable. ... It is a nuisance to me."

The former mayor has advocated for the county fining the sugar cooperative until changes are made to mitigate the smell and fix other concerns brought up by area residents at public meetings.

"I believe the county commissioners could do something about it," he said. If there were fines involved for the sugar cooperative not getting it taken care of within a certain time frame, "they'd have cleaned that baby up."

McAlister said that was the way to make businesses keep to their promises about things like this. Without that, he does not see anything really happening to ensure the smell will go away or at least not be quite as bad any time soon.

But if something does not happen before too long, McAlister may wind up doing something he never thought would happen: moving away from Fort Morgan.

Rodarte said did not put much stock in the threat of litigation or an actual law suit resulting in change with the smell at the plant, but he also is not opposed to using that as a tool in pursuing such a change. He said he would offer up his story to the lawyers.

"I don't think it's going to do too much, to be honest," Ernie Rodarte about the letter and a potential law suit.

He lives in the Spanish Colony area just to the east of the sugar factory and has been quite vocal about wanting something to happen with the smell.

"People look at the sugar factory as such an asset," Rodarte said. "To damage that is going to be difficult, and that's not really what we're trying to do."

Instead, he and others he knows who are upset with the sugar cooperative about the smell just want to see something actually happen about lessening the odor coming from the plant and surround grounds and ponds.

"It hasn't gotten any better at all," Rodarte said of measures the sugar cooperative said were being taken to lessen the smell or make it more pleasant. "That's done nothing. If anything, it's changed the odor, but it's still a very harsh type of smell."

He said he wished the sugar factory would be a bit more transparent with the community about what was happening at the plant.

"What I'd like more than anything is proof of what they're doing," Rodarte said. "I don't know if they're actually doing anything. I know I see a couple machines out there by the ponds, but I don't know what they're here for."

In the meantime, he said he planned to send his thoughts and concerns to the Denver lawyers and see what would happen, both with a potential lawsuit and everything that was promised by the Western Sugar officials.

"It really damages the quality of life," Rodarte said of the smell. "Do I think we'll see any results? No. I think we're going to have to wait the two years."

Staying out of it

For current local officials and the sugar factory, itself, there was far less being said publicly concerning the letter and the potential for a lawsuit over the odor coming from the plant.

Western Sugar Cooperative declined to address the letters being sent out by the law firm to area residents.

"We're not going to have a comment," Western Sugar Vice President and General Counsel Heather Luther told the Times Thursday afternoon.

The same went for the city of Fort Morgan.

"The plant is not in the city," Brennan said, and there would be "no position" taken on the letter by the city.

The plant is located in Morgan County, though, and it is under the jurisdiction of the county commissioners. But that did not mean there would be a position taken by them either.

"What I think our reply is is no reply," Zwetzig said of the letter. "We've permitted the sugar factory to get that problem fixed, and we think we need to give them the time to do that. We know its not going to get fixed overnight. This is a problem that didn't get created overnight either. They say they are working on it and we believe that's true, and that the city of Fort Morgan has been over there to see that."

"I believe that's true," fellow County Commissioner Mark Arndt added. "There are so many factors from weather to mechanical that have had an impact on that and the smell this year. We are concerned about both sides of this because we know there are people who are impacted by it but we also want industry to do well in our community. But we know they are working on it."

Zwetzig said the smell impacted the commissioners, too.

"I also want to say that all of us, Mark, Laura (Teague) and I, all understand the issue," he said. "I live north on Highway 52 so I drive by the plant every day on my way home and smell it. So we understand and are aware of the concerns people have about it."

Waiting game

For area residents who received the letter, whether to respond to it is their choice. Such responses could lead to some sort of a class-action lawsuit, or they could lead to nothing at all happening.

A lawsuit or rumors of one on the horizon could spur Western Sugar Cooperative officials to take more costly measures sooner than they wanted, or it could make them consider closing this plant entirely. But it also could make them want to stay on the same course they outlined at a public meeting in Fort Morgan last spring.

Those are the sorts of possibilities - and worries - people were talking about Thursday, if not necessarily on the record for in the local newspaper.

And it is all speculation at this point as to what could or will happen.

But McAlister knows what he ultimately wants to happen.

"I know it can be fixed," McAlister said of the smell. "Whether they're trying hard enough or not, I don't know. ... The smell can go away. All they have to do is control it."

He said that may be up to the county commissioners to make the sugar cooperative do, but it also could be the result of a lawsuit being threatened or actually happening.

Either way, he is willing to wait a bit longer, but his patience will not last forever.

"I'll give (the sugar factory) a few more years to get it straightened out," McAlister said.

But if that does not happen, he said he will get serious about moving away from the house he built in northeast Fort Morgan.

Still, he would be worried about being able to sell that house if the smell were still as bad.

"I don't know who would buy a house over here," he said. "You can't stand it.

Times Staff Writer Paul Albani-Burgio and Times Editor Robert Leininger contributed to this report.

The Western Sugar Cooperative plant located on state Highway 144/West Riverview Avenue could face a class-action lawsuit regarding the smell coming from the plant, if Denver law firm Fuicelli & Lee, P.C. and enough local residents decide to follow that path. (Jon A. Yamamoto / Fort Morgan Times)

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